“The proof of our success was that the airplanes we built operated under tight secrecy for eight to ten years before the government even acknowledged their existence.”
– Ben R. Rich, Skunk Works
This is a published version of the AMT Tech Report newsletter. You can sign up to get the Tech Report in your inbox here.
1. AMT Manufacturing Mandate: Boosting U.S. Industry
AMT’s 2025 Manufacturing Mandate highlights priorities for U.S. industry: Accelerate adoption of advanced tech; invest in workforce skills; and boost R&D to keep pace in AI, automation, and defense. Stable tax, trade, and regulatory policies are highlighted as essential for long-term competitiveness, while stronger supply chains and public-private partnerships underpin national security. The goal is to cultivate a resilient industrial base that drives innovation and economic strength.
2. Metrology’s Measured Move Into Heavy Industry
High-precision metrology and nondestructive testing are becoming more ubiquitous in heavy industry; they are now on shop floors, shipyards, and power plants. Faster scanners, portable tools, and AI-driven workflows mean inspections can happen during live operations, not just shutdowns. By layering geometry scans with integrity checks, teams cut downtime and catch problems in real-time, whether in-house or outsourced.
3. Turning Up the Heat
NASA’s GRX-810 alloy, a nickel-cobalt-chromium blend reinforced with ceramic oxides, pushes additive manufacturing into new limits of extreme heat applications. Concocted with a novel acoustic mixing process, it can endure 2,000-degree-Fahrenheit stress for up to a year and still be recycled. Now licensed to Elementum 3D, GRX-810 is already in testing for turbine sensors to boost efficiency and durability. With broader applications in aerospace and energy, it’s a material designed to take the heat and stay in the game.
4. From Days of Code to Hours of Cuts
Lambda Function is bringing AI into CNC programming, trimming multiday setups into hours while boosting tool life and shop efficiency. Integrated with Siemens NX (and soon Mastercam, Fusion, and GibbsCAM), its assistant learns from machinists, suggests strategies, and feeds shop floor data back into the loop. With energy-based tool life predictions and adaptive feeds, it helps machinists cut smarter, faster, and with fewer headaches. See it live at IMTS 2026.
5. Accuracy vs. Precision: Stop Mixing Them Up
Metrology isn’t just about measuring; it’s about knowing how reliable those measurements are. ISO GUM says every result needs an uncertainty value, not just an absolute figure. Accuracy is closeness to the true value or target (qualitative); precision is repeatability and consistency (quantitative); and uncertainty tells you the range you can trust. Add in repeatability, reproducibility, and resolution, and you’ve got a full picture for reporting, improving processes, and making defensible manufacturing decisions.
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